In furnishing a home, owners are, typically, concerned about two factors. These factors are functionality and aesthetic apperance.
The above factors are relevant regardless of the type of furniture in question. Certainly, it can be said that these factors apply to chairs, and they are given consideration by a home owner when purchasing chairs for his or her residence.
The features that it would be desirable for a chair to have will vary depending upon the application which the furniture item is to serve. For example, a dining room chair should be comfortable yet, at the same time, facilitate proper posture for the taking of a meal so that good digestion is fostered. On the other hand, a living room or family room chair should provide comfort, and even therapeutic treatment for the user.
In selecting a chair for a game room or family room, a purchaser might consider aesthetic appearance as a feature to which more importance is to be given than in the case of, for example, a kitchen chair. This is not to say that aesthetic appearance is totaly unimportant in chosing chairs for a kitchen or a dining room. Certainly, appearance is always a consideration regardless of the room for which the purchase is to be made. Rooms such as dens and family rooms, however, allow for greater reflection of the taste and personality of the homeowners.
One type of chair typically used in living rooms, dens, and family rooms is known as a "recliner". A back support of such a chair is, typically, oriented generally vertically when it is in its normal position. The back support, however, can be angled increasingly closer to the horizontal, if the user so desires, in order to make the chair more comfortable. The reclined configuration is, typically, one which is chosen during the evening hours and might be employed while the user is watching television.
Most recliners of which Applicant is aware are ones wherein a mechanical linkage between a seat support and a back support is provided. In some recliners, the seat support remains, basically, in a fixed position, and the back support is permitted to pivot angularly downward. A number of reclining-type chairs employ foot rests which can be elevated, or which are automatically elevated, as the back support is angled downward.
More recent developments in the chair art have provided reclining chairs wherein the seat support slides forward as the back support is depressed. Such a construction enables the chair to be used so that, regardless of the orientation of the back support, the chair can be, substantially, at a fixed distance from the wall against which it is positioned. That is, although the back support is being depressed backward and would normally get closer to the wall and even engage the wall as it becomes further depressed, because the seat support to which it is pivoted slides forward, the upper extremity of the back support maintains, substantially, a constant distance from the wall.
In the case of chairs discussed here-in-before, however, the linkage and relationship between the seat support and back support is constant, and, consequently, does not take into account the variations between the anatomies of different people. These variations are sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle.
Chairs are known in the art wherein the contours thereof are such that they can conform to the lines and curves of a person's body, regardless of who the person using the chair is. That is, as a person sits in a chair of this type, its contours will be rearranged to conform to the person's shape.
Such chairs can be rearranged because of fill provided therein which allows movement and relocation thereof in response to forces applied to the chair by the person sitting therein. The filling, or stuffing, is, typically, soft and such that it can distort or move to another location in response to the application of forces One chair of this type is known as a "bean bag" chair.
While these chairs can have therapeutic value in that they can conform to the specific anatomy of the person sitting therein, they do have certain disadvantages. For example, because of the nature of the stuffing employed in order to obtain the contour conformability advantage, it is difficult to provide a back support which offers reasonable resistance to pressures applied as a person sitting in the chair leans back. What is gained in one aspect of the chair, therefore, is lost in another. Not only might such a chair make it difficult for a user to get into and out of the chair, but it might even cause injury by way of muscle pull, particularly if the person is old or has poor muscle tone.
It is to these deficiencies of the prior art and implied desirable features of a chair that the present invention is directed. It is an improved chair which not only allows substantial conformability to the user's particular contours, but is also provides a back support which is firm enough to have a therapeutic effect and which is controllable by the user of the chair.